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The only thing we have power over in the universe is our own thoughts.

Rene Descartes

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Rene Descartes
Age: 53 †
Born: 1596
Born: March 31
Died: 1650
Died: February 11
Astronomer
Correspondent
Mathematician
Mechanical Automaton Engineer
Military Personnel
Music Theorist
Musicologist
Philosopher
Physicist
La Haye en Touraine
Descartes
Cartesius
Renatus Cartesius
Thoughts
Universe
Power
Thing

More quotes by Rene Descartes

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With me, everything turns into mathematics.
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Wonder is the first of all the passions.
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There is a great difference between mind and body insomuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible.
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If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
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Instead I ought to be grateful to Him who never owed me anything for having been so generous to me, rather than think that He deprived me of those things or has taken away from me whatever He did not give me.
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But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be.
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Intuitive knowledge is an illumination of the soul, whereby it beholds in the light of God those things which it pleases Him to reveal to us by a direct impression of divine clearness.
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The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.
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If I go for the alternative which is false, then obviously I shall be in error if I take the other side, then it is by... chance that I arrive at the truth, and I shall still be at fault.... In this incorrect use of free will may be found the privation which constitutes the essence of error.
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I know that I exist the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.
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And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.
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Thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the discovery of subsequent ones.
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There is a difference between happiness, the supreme good, and the final end or goal toward which our actions ought to tend. For happiness is not the supreme good, but presupposes it, being the contentment or satisfaction of the mind which results from possessing it.
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So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.
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The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.
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I was convinced that our beliefs are based much more on custom and example than on any certain knowledge.
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Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them.
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Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.
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Give me extension and motion and I will construct the universe.
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In the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than by the many.
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